Electronic medical record and practice management information systems store, retrieve and deliver information to a health care enterprise. Some systems address only one type of information necessary for clinical and practice management, for example, outpatient billing information records, outpatient medical records information, etc. Such systems feature single user interfaces, each allowing entry of only one limited type of information, and are combined with a single data repository that is similarly limited. The data repositories utilized by these systems can be difficult to interface with one another, and typically include duplicate information.
Other systems allow multiple user interfaces to access a single data repository, however the multiple user interfaces are disparate in operation and appearance. Facilities implementing such disparate interfaces must expend significant time and effort to train users for each of the confusing variety of applications with unrelated user interfaces. In addition, such systems typically limit users' ability to move freely within one application requiring, for example, that users complete a specified task before moving on to another. Further, such systems typically require that two individual programs run simultaneously on one machine when switching between applications.
The systems mentioned require complicated deployment of multiple user interfaces and/or data repositories to different system users and access terminals throughout the health care facility. Health care enterprises utilizing such systems risk non-compliance with health care regulations and best practice guidelines, due to the inflexibility of the multiple interfaced applications with different system user security records and alerts systems. Additionally, the health care enterprises incur unnecessary administrative overhead created by the poor communication capabilities between the multiple interfaced applications, for example, poor or non-existent clinical decision support, or billing applications that contradict diagnostic decisions already filed in the enterprise's medical records application.